VIDEO DESCRIPTION:
🚴♂️ Join me on a classic Planet Doug small adventure as I ride my bicycle along the beautiful Melaka River boardwalk in historic Melaka, Malaysia.
After completing a walk along the boardwalk as far as the end of the river cruises a couple of days ago, I decided to go beyond that point by bicycle and see just how far the boardwalk goes. The answer turned out to be 10 kilometers to reach the end (more than a 20-km round trip).
I started my ride at the mouth of the Melaka River where it empties into the Malacca Strait. I could smell the salt on the ocean breeze. Then I turned inland, curious to see how this incredibly developed riverside boardwalk functioned as both a pedestrian walkway and a bicycle path. The signs clearly said that both cyclists and pedestrians were welcome to use it.
I didn’t know this at the time, but this boardwalk was the result of the massive MELAKA RIVER REHABILITATION AND BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT. You can type that into Google to bring up their website and read all about it. This project was about far more than just giving tourists like me a fun place to ride a bicycle. In the end, I was astonished at how far the boardwalk went and how big and developed it was.
✨ Highlights of the Ride:
- Close encounters with some of the river wildlife that has returned since the clean-up
- The fun of riding underneath lots and lots of bridges
- Kampung Morten traditional Malay village
- The abandoned monorail and its crazy history
- River cruise terminals and local insights
- A fun chat with a street vendor using a basket lift for apam balik orders
- The ride ended with a surprise meal & drink at The Daily Fix on Jonker Street courtesy of a generous Planet Doug supporter.
The full extent of this riverside path is one of Melaka’s best-kept secrets — wide, scenic, and surprisingly bike-friendly (though definitely hot and sweaty!).
Melaka #Malacca #MalaysiaTravel #BikeRide #MelakaRiver #TravelVlog #SoutheastAsia
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
The other day I went for a long walk along the Melaka River, on foot walking. By the time I got back to my hotel and I looked at my Strava app, I figured out I had covered 12 kilometers total walking and it was a really amazing walk. Very scenic, amazing boardwalk, lots of wildlife, which was really kind of interesting. Otter and monitor lizards of all kinds of sizes, fish, macaques. And one thing I noticed was they had signs on the boardwalk for bicycles saying, “Yeah, you can cycle along this boardwalk as well. Walking and cycling are both permitted.” So today, as you can see, I’m on my bicycle, and what I want to do is basically recreate some of that walk, but do it on a bicycle. And I did see some weather reports warning of rain in the late afternoon.
So, yeah, a little concerned about that, but I’ll keep an eye on the skies and see what’s going to happen. And I just want basically to ride my bike along the river and perhaps when I get to the end of my ride go inland from there and visit a couple of places. Maybe Bukit China, the largest Chinese cemetery in the world outside of China is there. St. John’s Fort maybe. I thought about going to the prison museum and it’s just late in the day. It’s already 1:00, so they close at 5. And if I’m going to go to a museum, I like to go early in the morning when I’m fresh and full of energy and I have as much time as I want. So, I may ride my bicycle by the museum, but I’m not going to go inside. Well, starting my ride, I figure I’m a bit of a completist. So, if I’m going to do something like ride along the boardwalk, I’d like to start at the very beginning. And because this river goes for quite a distance, I can’t ride all the way to the end, but at least I can start at the very beginning. So, I’m down here at the mouth of the Melaka River. Got an ocean breeze coming in, which is really nice.
Could swear I see something over there that looks like a submarine, but from a distance, yeah, it probably isn’t.
Okay, starting right here. Let’s go for a ride. And of course, any kind of a walkway that is open to both pedestrians and cyclists. I would say the rules of the road would say that a pedestrian gets the right of way. So, if I do come across pedestrians, I’ll get off my bike and walk it or go very very slowly because further up ahead, the boardwalk is not very wide. So, there isn’t a lot of room. So, especially with my GoPro sticking off to the left on my broomstick, there isn’t a huge amount of space.
It looks like they’re doing some dredging here, which I always find that kind of thing interesting. Yeah, you can see the mud, the silt of the river has come all the way up to the surface. It’s actually bulging above the water. So, I think they are dredging with this giant pipe, I think. Though I don’t know. Oh, no. No. Oh, I’m such an idiot. They’re putting in a post. I thought that was a giant pipe and they were sucking but they’re actually putting large posts into position.
I was thinking about dredging so much. That was just the first thing that my brain came up with. I saw a barge out there dredging the other day. So, my brain made the connection and I’ve been thinking about the river silting and land reclamation.
So, yeah, they’re putting in some posts. Looks like they’re about to put in another one. Looks like they put in maybe three of them and they’ve got a fourth one to install.
I love stuff like that. This piece of rope has such meaning for them, right? It’s such a big part of their work. But then when you look at it as an outsider, just as something visual, it looks so interesting. So I just stopping to take a picture of this rope. It’s very shiny, very much whiter than you would think, particularly when you look at the interior of it, like the inside cords. Maybe you can see that in the photo. I can insert it.
All right. Yeah, this part of the boardwalk, the very beginning is different than the other sections where I started taking video when I was walking. I didn’t start way down here. I started walking here, but I didn’t shoot any video down in this section. I didn’t turn on the camera until I got onto the official tourist area of the boardwalk. Yeah, I think the area that is meant for cycling is a little bit away from the downtown core because if you’re walking your bike or riding your bike in the downtown area, you’re running into steps all the time. And I think I have to ride to get to the very first bridge and then from that bridge then it all becomes a little bit more regular.
Right up here on my left is where the official pedestrian boardwalk begins. I’m not sure how easy it is for me to get my bicycle up there. Oh, yeah. There’s an opening here. I just have to pick the bike up this steep step.
Yeah, my bike is such a heavy bicycle, especially when I get it ready to head out for the day.
There’s the Indomal Kingdom again. The fast ferry goes in and out from Sumatra. And there’s the international ferry terminal.
Yeah, off in this direction, I see some dark clouds behind me. It’s blue and clear, but there are some darker clouds up ahead. So, we’ll see how the weather turns out.
Just going beside the Samudra Museum on my right.
Still haven’t gone on a river boat, a cruise. And the way things are going. I don’t think I will since I like to walk and if I’m not walking I prefer to cycle. I would do it as a tourist, as a YouTuber just to shoot some video from the boat. But so far, everything I’ve seen about the river cruises, it’s pretty expensive.
The one when I walked all the way to the end of the river on my walk. I thought about taking a boat back, but they didn’t have any one-way tickets. You had to pay for a full round trip, which was about 50 ringgit. Yeah. I think this is the same company, the Melaka River Cruise.
And there’s a price. Yeah, a price chart right here. Yeah, it’s the same company. So, it’s 50 ringgit for a foreigner. 30 or 35 for an adult.
So, yeah, that’s a lot of money just to get a little bit of video of something that I can see from my bicycle. And as I said, one of the more interesting aspects of my walk was the wildlife, seeing all of the otter and the macaques and the monitor lizards, hearing the birds. And from a boat, you wouldn’t see too much of that. And I figure since I’m cycling past, I’ll stop just here and there just to there’s the Malacca Malay Sultanate water wheel site. Just get a little bit of video of that and the Middelburg Bastion. Among my favorite sites in Melaka. Yeah, I love this bastion. I love the ladder. So from here, if I try to follow the river, I’ll end up going up and down, up and down a whole bunch of stairs. So I think I have to jump ahead a little bit, skip this section.
Yeah, on my walk I was commenting on the root structure of these trees that got cut down along the river. But I never noticed this one before. That looks pretty amazing. So they cut down this looks like it was a huge tree going over the Middelburg bastion, but they just cut the top off and they left the root structure and the trunk in place. Looks amazing.
This whole section of road is all one way. So, I have to turn into a pedestrian. Like I said, this section is a little bit difficult to navigate on a bicycle. The bridge is here.
And I think for riding along the river boardwalk, you have to start just up ahead here.
Yeah, right down here is where the walk along the river. Oh, I think I can. Yeah, look at that. Right here, you can see up here there’s a sign. Blue for bicycle, green for pedestrians. So technically, yeah, you’re allowed to have a bicycle here.
There’s one of the many, many river boats.
And this one here, hop on, hop off cruise. I still don’t know where that one starts. Like where you buy a ticket and how much it costs. And I don’t know anything about the hop on, hop off. For someone like me, that would be the more attractive option if you can just stop along the way and then get back on again. But who knows how long it would take until the next boat comes along.
Ah, they actually built a ramp here for bicycles.
Nighttime, of course, or on the weekend, you couldn’t ride your bicycle here. Way too crowded. And this whole area would be full of tables for the restaurants and cafes.
In my walking video, I talked about the other side of the river. I noticed that those are all bars. So, they sell alcohol there. Mainly cold beer, of course. And I was wondering out loud whether that was done on purpose, like to put all the bars on that side and then no bars on this side. And somebody left a comment on one of my videos saying that that was the case. That that section of businesses like on this side of the river is essentially not halal over there. So on that side, this little section is not halal. So they can serve pork products, alcohol, things like that. But on this side of the river, everything is halal.
Just passing by Victoria Bastion, San Domingo Bastion as always. And then right up ahead here, I have to go down these steps. I wonder if there’s a ramp over there.
So, they’ve got some pillars here to keep out motorcycles, but a bicycle can just fit through. And I wonder if there’s actually a ramp. You don’t have to carry your bicycle down the stairs. Yeah, check that out. So, right here, I would say, is the beginning of the cycling. So, if you’re going to come here to ride your bike, you want to go to the Jambatan Chan Koon Cheng. And here, yeah, I’m not going to ride my bike down this ramp. That’s just asking for trouble. It’s very steep and then your wheel is going to hit this grate. You could end up in the river pretty easily.
But technically from here it’s a cycling section. But as I said it’s not smooth sailing. It’s pretty narrow. You’re sharing the space with pedestrians with people taking selfies. Look like there’s a woman here with her smartphone on a tripod. So yeah, cycling etiquette, of course. Get off your bike. Hello. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
I came by here the other day and I watched them raising and lowering this basket, but I didn’t know why. Why they were doing it? Hey, can I ask you a question? When you bring the basket up and down, why do you do that? What do you bring something up or bring something down? I bring apam balik. Apam balik? Yeah. Pick up. You pick it up. Yeah. So they make it up there. Yeah. Make it and then they bring it down. We call the customer and then customer will pick up. Ah, customer comes. Yeah, I saw that the other day. Ah, okay. I thought you would use it to raise it up, but no, you bring it down. Bring it down. Bring it down. Okay. Thanks.
Yeah, this whole section is pretty busy. Really attractive. Whole bunch of really nice restaurants here.
So, I’m walking my bicycle again, and this is where my adventures with the otter began. I saw quite an active family of otter right here.
I think this is where they live underneath this bridge. Jambatan Kampung Jawa. So, there are a bunch of pipes that go underneath the walkway and they live inside those pipes underground.
The one thing about the wildlife of the river that I didn’t really point out is this. Do you see all those fish down there? Big school of fish. And you can see they’re all pointing in the same direction. And that’s because the water is flowing out of the drainage ditches of the city and the water is flowing out from the city into the river. So there’s all kinds of tasty tidbits in the water. So at every one of these drainage ditches like flowing into the river, you’ll find a school of fish just like this. Hundreds of fish. And of course, the otter would come here and just it’s just a huge otter buffet. I mean, they could just snag any one of these fish. But as you go along the river, anytime you see a cluster of a school of fish like that, it’s because there’s a ditch draining into the river.
Yeah. Beautiful area. Really nice, though. Advice for cyclists. Hot. Today is actually kind of overcast, but I’m just dripping with sweat already. I’m soaking. It is so hot here. Yeah. Got to be prepared for that. I haven’t seen a single otter. Haven’t heard one either. Like the very distinct piercing bark of the otter. I haven’t heard that at all.
All right. And now I think we’re into more open territory. Don’t have to worry as much about pedestrians and restaurants and things like that. I can just ride my bike.
To be honest, I’m quite surprised. I was fully expecting to see signs saying no bicycles allowed, but I don’t think very many people ride bicycles around Malaysia unless they’re doing it for sport, a very specific ride with a cycling club or something. It’s not generally used casually, just for day-to-day transportation. So, even though bicycles are allowed here, I don’t think you’re going to see very many of them ever. So, I have a feeling like if a lot of people rode their bikes here, there would start to be complaints and then they would eventually say, “Nah, no bicycles allowed.” But for now, it’s still okay. Just passing by this area behind these signs, there’s a lagoon full of monitor lizards and macaques and otter.
Yeah, I spent a lot of time following the otter and taking video of them. Jambatan Pasar. This is the market bridge.
So, the 12 shut down. I’m just recording with the nine.
My GoPro Hero 12 promptly overheated and shut down. Welcome to Melaka. So, I’m just shooting with my Hero 9 pointing forward for a few minutes till the 12 recovers from its heat stroke. We’re back at the amusement park. And right up ahead is the remains of the monorail. Again, when I was walking down here, I could see it was a monorail track, but I didn’t know about its history. So, I looked it up.
And yeah, this is a little bit confusing in terms of bicycles. This part of the walkway says no motorcycles, but I think bicycles are still allowed, so just have to be even more careful riding through this narrow pathway. But yeah, I found out later on that there was a real history with this monorail that it opened to much fanfare and then right almost as soon as it started there was a breakdown and the trains were stuck on the tracks and it took a long time to get the people off and then there was just one problem after another after another and it eventually just stopped operating. It hasn’t operated for years and they’re still trying to figure out what to do with it. All along here there’s all kinds of monitor lizards down in the water on the left and the right. Whoa. I was just going to say that I shot so much video of them when I was walking that I wouldn’t bother this time, but there’s quite a specimen down here. It’s not going to look like much on the GoPro, but there’s a big monitor lizard right down there. Yeah, you wouldn’t notice him at all until he started moving, but that’s a big lizard. Nose to tip of the tail. 6 feet. Hard to judge. 5 feet. 6 feet. I’d call it 6 feet. Probably as tall as I am if it were able to stand on its tail.
Yeah. The amazing thing about this boardwalk is how it goes underneath all these bridges. So you don’t have to constantly go into the city and try to find a way around the bridges. They all go directly underneath them.
I’m cycling right beside the huge Swiss Garden Hotel.
Amazing boardwalk as you can see. Certainly a lot easier than walking. A lot faster and cooler than walking.
Definitely not designed for cycling. The average cyclist probably wouldn’t go through here. It’s just too zigzaggy. If you’re not accustomed or if you’re going too fast, you can easily hook your handlebars or your pedals on the side of the railing. Go for a tumble.
This is so much fun to ride through.
And over on the left is Kampung Morten, traditional Malay village, very similar to Kampung Baru in Kuala Lumpur. Let me spin my bike around. Aim my GoPro in that direction.
There it is. Yeah. Kampung Morten.
Beautiful area. Old traditional Malay homes. I went for a walk all through there the other day.
There’s more of Kampung Morten. That’s the main pedestrian bridge to get across.
But when I was walking along the river, my goal was to go to St. Peter’s Church, which is right here. But since I came this far, I decided to keep going. And I ended up at the main terminal for the boats up ahead, the Melaka River cruise. And that’s where I found out that it cost 50 ringgit to take the boat to go back. So I just turned around and walked all the way back. So as far as I went on this walk was this boat terminal up ahead. So, I think today I’m going to try and go beyond it. It’s a lot easier on my bike, of course, cover more ground more quickly. So, just for fun, we’ll try to go farther up the river. See what it looks like.
As you can see, the monorail goes all the way along here. It’s a big project constructing that.
And I read online that one suggestion was to keep the entire structure, but build a walking platform along the top railing. Don’t use it for a train anymore, but convert it into a walking or running platform. Seems like a good idea, but it feels a bit like it would be too costly and too difficult to convert it that way.
And here we are already at the boat terminal for the Melaka River Cruise. But I’m curious whether it mixes with the hop on hop off boat because as I said I don’t really know how all the different boats work. And I did. I just went up to the counter and they told me, “Well, their boat costs 50 ringgit.” But maybe there’s another ticket counter that they didn’t tell me about where I could have gotten a cheaper ticket on the hop on hop off boat. Maybe they’re all separate that way. I do wonder whether the boardwalk also ends here because now you’ve got a gate, right? So I can’t continue in this direction.
And this is the main boat terminal.
Just curious if the boardwalk continues on the other side. A riverside pathway of some kind.
I guess that’s my answer. If a motorcycle can go here, well, I’m certain a bicycle can. Huh, that’s cool.
Nice.
Melaka River Cruise. I wonder if it’s the same company.
Just another dock for the same boat. Same company. No idea.
I need somebody to write an in-depth guide to the boats of the Melaka River. Break them all down, number them, and exactly where they go, how much they all cost, and the schedule.
I’m amazed that this boardwalk is going on for so long. I didn’t know it would continue this far.
There’s a few spots here and there where you have to do a little bit of a dipsy doodle, figure out how to get across something, go up and down a couple of steps, couple of stairways, but really not very many barriers at all. Most of it is pretty wide open.
Very cool.
Still riding along. No end in sight to the riverside path. And as I ride, occasionally I’ll hear and see quite a big splash because there are monitor lizards all along the shore sunning themselves on the rocks. And I don’t see them, but of course they see me. And when I get close, they all jump in the water.
Makes me wonder if they have any natural predators here. Feels like they wouldn’t. I mean a baby one maybe an otter might snatch it for lunch but a full-sized monitor lizard it’d be the biggest thing in the water for sure. I don’t think there’s any predators here. But of course other than humans so they get very nervous if a human is around.
Reminds me of that story that went viral all over social media recently. That American man in Hawaii and he threw a big rock at a seal and it turned out someone was filming him when he did it. It was just someone being an idiot picked up a big rock, saw a seal in the water and tried to hit it with this big rock. And then, of course, the video of him doing that is all over social media. Now he’s being charged with various animal welfare crimes, things like that. But, yeah, he’s busy doing damage control. And the most recent story came from his lawyer. And he came up with a defense. And his defense was that in fact this man was an environmentalist. And he was very passionate about protecting turtles. And he saw two turtles sunning themselves on rocks. And then his idea is that the seals would attack the turtles. So what he was doing was trying to protect the turtles by scaring away the seal. So that’s going to be his defense when he goes to court. So we’ll have to see whether a judge buys that story or not. Of course, no normal person would buy that story. Everybody’s laughing about it. It’s just a ridiculous defense. But hey, if you’re saying just the fact that something is ridiculous doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold up in court. It might actually be a half-decent defense and he seems to be showing a lot of remorse apologizing for what he did and saying he knew it was wrong and saying he’s trying to protect the turtles. So, I don’t know. It’s one of those crazy social media stories, you know. But yeah, I only thought of that because these monitor lizards, I’m not going to hurt them, but they don’t know that. They see me getting close, and of course, they’re going to jump in the water to escape. They don’t want someone picking up a big rock and throwing it at them. And some people would.
Very empty landscape out here. Hardly any people at all. Only maintenance workers like landscapers. The only people that I’m seeing out here.
But of course, you have to take that with an understanding about the time of day because the fact that the river is deserted in the middle of the day, the hottest time of day, that’s normal. But maybe at night when the sun goes down, all the people that live in these neighborhoods, they might all come out to the river. So, this area might be full of people at night, just not during the day.
And I haven’t seen any boats at all. So, none of the river boats seem to go this far. At least not today. Another bridge. This is the Jambatan Taman Rumpun Bahagia.
Got to lean way over to go underneath that bridge, but at least I can still go under it on my bicycle.
I may have reached the official end of the boardwalk. There’s a water gate here. Kind of a dam. And yes, this is the end of the official boardwalk. After this, you need a boat or you have to go inland and go down the roads. Thank you. So yeah, the guy there is shouting at me that I can cross over on this dam or this sluice gate, whatever you want to call it. And then the path continues on the other side. But whether I keep going up river or not, oh man, this bike is heavy. Good grief, what a beast. I don’t know how I managed to make everything so heavy and difficult. But yeah, I can cross this sluice gate and then I can. He says the path continues on the other side, but I don’t think it’s the boardwalk anymore. It just turns into more of a pathway. And you could keep going, but I just want to cross over and ride back. Oh boy. Okay, this is not going to be easy. Very steep stairs. Here we go.
There we go. But yeah, so there’s a pathway over here and I mean if you wanted to and you had a reason to, you could continue cycling with a mountain bike up that pathway, but I’ve gone as far as I need to go.
The end of the official boardwalk. And from here I can just turn around and go back down the other side of the river. I just checked the Strava app which I’ve had running and it has been exactly 9.9 km to get here. So yeah, 10 km ride basically 10 km back down the other side of the river.
I’m back downtown. I hope that time warp worked out nicely. I just ran the time warp for most of the bike ride back in. And a friend of mine and Planet Doug supporter reached out and said there could be a drink and a snack waiting for me up here on Jonker Street at a place called the Daily Fix. So, I’m just heading for. Oh, okay. I guess this is a one-way street in the opposite direction, but maybe I can cycle a little bit against traffic. Yeah, it’s middle of the day, very, very hot, so not many people out here. At night, this turns into a pedestrian walkway, but daytime, yeah, it’s pretty wide open. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to park a bicycle up here on the sidewalk, but I think there I might be able to find some room.
Actually, maybe I can put my bike right over here.
All right, here we go on foot. Another 100 meters from where I locked up my bicycle. There was nothing there that I could lock my bicycle to, but I think it’ll be okay. Take a chance and nobody’s going to just pick up my bicycle and run away with it. So, I’m looking for a place called the Daily Fix. I made it. For some reason, I had a heck of a time finding the place. I walked by it, couldn’t find it. I came this way, walked by it again. I missed it. I just could not locate this place. But it turns out it’s actually inside the building. So, you have to walk through a craft store. So, you got this souvenir shop. That’s what’s on the street, but then you have to come through the ice cream shop and the souvenir shop. And then you get here, which is the inside of the Daily Fix. Yeah. I don’t know if they have a second floor as part of the cafe or not.
Yeah, look at that. So, we have an upper section and then some seating in here on the inside as well.
Nice.
And I just grabbed a seat, a table off here in the corner next to all the suitcases and all the electronics seemed appropriate for me.
Oh, and my friend wanted this to be a complete surprise. So, I don’t know what the order is. I was under instructions just to tell them that someone else is going to place an order online for me. And of course, I told that to them like five times and they still didn’t understand what I was saying. So, I just have to wait till my friend tells me the order’s been placed and then I think I just have to go up to the counter and look for it. This whole complicated system I couldn’t get it across.
Hello. Yeah, this online order it’s for me my friend. So it’s haven’t done yet. I know. I know. Just letting you know. I’m just sitting over there to eat in. That’s okay. I did. Cool.
They’ve got a big menu here. All the coffees, and drinks, smoothies, a lot of breakfasts. I noticed the big breakfast, eggs benedict, smoked salmon, chicken wraps, scrambled eggs, all kinds of western food, pasta, salad, gourmet burgers, pancakes. Yeah. So, pretty big menu here on a nice piece of wood. Okay, food and drinks have arrived. My mystery benefactor and I, we were working really hard to communicate that the order is coming in online, but I’ll be dining in so they can just bring the food to this table, like a dine in service. But you’re talking about Planet Doug here. And on Planet Doug, these sorts of things give up. There’s no you don’t even try to be honest. So like if you order it through Grab, it’s coming as a to-go order. So I did my best. I have a great deal of difficulty communicating these things.
So now I’ve got to fight through the wrapping here. Maybe I can punch through. There we go. Tada. Got my straw in there. So, I have no idea what this is. Part of the whole cloak and dagger business was so that I have no idea what the order is. It is meant to be a surprise. So, I have no idea what this drink is. I’ll find out. Iced tea. Iced lemon tea, which is perfect after cycling. Yeah, I get so thirsty.
Now, some food came in a to-go box. And what’s in there? Oh. Ah, sandwich.
Can’t quite. It’s like for me to know for sure what kind of sandwich it is. The Daily Fix Club sandwich. Oh, that looks amazing.
That’s heavy duty.
Okay. Ham and cheese. And chicken and beef and veggies and sauce. That is a big sandwich. That was a big sandwich.
It’s a good sandwich. Way thicker than I would have expected any sandwich to be. Very beefy. Very filling.
Always have your trusty knife with you. You never know when you’re going to need a little pair of scissors.
I just have all this ice here.
So, I want to take advantage of that with my water.
I’ve torn this poor sandwich to pieces. So, I think I’m going to finish off the rest of it with a knife and fork. Going to cut it into pieces.
Have a slow and steady sandwich.
All right. So, in terms of this, I think I’m going to shut down the camera and enjoy the rest of my post river bicycle ride snack and drink.
Oh, post lunch, post afternoon snack. I feel so much better. I often go out on one of these exploratory rides or walks. And for whatever reason, I don’t eat or even drink during that time. I don’t eat anything until the day is over. But yeah, having that really made me feel better. But here’s I guess why I had so much trouble finding the place. I was looking for the Daily Fix. You know, I saw Watson’s, Jonker, Sang, Next KK, Batik, you know, Beyond Treasure. And I walked way up there. I couldn’t find it. I walked all the way back all the I still couldn’t find it. But there’s the little sign right there where it says the Daily Fix. Because you have to go through this shop and the Daily Fix is behind this shop on the street. Anyway, really good, really good sandwich. Yeah, nice people in there, too. Now, we just have to hope that my bicycle is still where I left it. Crazy corner right here. This is where I left my bike parked in amongst the scooters and motorcycles. And it’s still here. Actually, I saw it from far away because my broomstick stands out. I can see the stick jutting out from the front. Ah, my bike’s still there. Just as I was getting my bicycle, look what’s coming down the road.
Quite the parade.
I wonder if this is a daily thing. Kind of feels like it might be.
And now heading down Jonker Street back to Dutch Square. Short ride back to my hotel. And yeah, it’s no wonder that corner that is so busy where I walk down to the mosque. It’s such a busy corner because any car that comes all the way down here to the end, they have no choice. They must turn right and then go back around in a long circle because they can’t cross over the river here. So, if they’re in this part of the city and they want to get out, they have no choice. They have to turn at that corner or else they get stuck here and then they got to go all the way back around in a loop.
Here we are at Dutch Square.
Got to get across this street to head in the other direction.
Going to do a U-turn here.
Yeah, it’s really busy today. A lot of big tour groups here. Very bustling. And with that, I think we’re coming to the end of this video. Really enjoyed that ride. Figured out a little bit more of Melaka. Now I know how far the riverbank boardwalk goes. It goes 10 km. It’s like from here. Well, yeah. Basically, from the mouth of the river where it begins to the very end, 9.9 km. It’s very, very cool. It’s a big project. I don’t know when they built all of that, but that would have been a really big project. But really beautiful boardwalk all the way down. Really nice as a bike ride. It would have been better if there were a couple of little shops along the way to get a cold drink, but it was pretty desolate out there during the daytime. Maybe in the late afternoon, evening, more people show up and little stalls open up, but right now during the day, there’s nothing out there. So, yeah, gets pretty hot and you get pretty thirsty if you don’t bring anything to drink. Yeah, I didn’t bother bringing any water bottles with me today. I wasn’t thinking, I guess. So, that is it. Another enjoyable day in Melaka. Ending it with a nice meal and a drink from a Planet Doug mystery benefactor.
So, shout out and thank you to my mystery benefactor for my end of the day meal. That was really good. I feel so much better now that I’ve had something to eat. And of course, shout out to all of my supporters out there, the Planet Doug supporters, whether it’s through Malaysia’s Touch ‘n Go eWallet, of course, through the Planet Doug PayPal account, and the coffee posi over on Buy Me a Coffee and everyone that has joined the Planet Doug Patreon. And I have some Planet Doug Patreon members who have been there with me from the very very beginning. Yeah, I appreciate that very much. Thank you to all of you Patreon members. Yeah. What day is it today? Okay, it’s Wednesday. Surprisingly busy for a weekday. At least it feels that way to me. Look at all these buses up here. It’s like three big tour buses right here. Parking lots are filling up.
And during this bike ride, I had the Strava app running the whole time. So, right after I end this little conclusion, I’m going to stick in the 3D flyover map that I produce from the website called Map Director using the data from Strava. And you’ll be able to see a 3D map tracing the whole path that I followed today. So, check that out. And that’s it. Turning down the road where my hotel is located. And that’s it. Shutting down. Yeah. Everybody that’s still watching this video all the way to the end, you know that makes you a member of the Planet Doug Crunch Club. You know who you are. Put CC in the comments to let me know that you made it all the way to the end. And yeah, if you came to a place like Melaka and you could rent a bicycle, you can like bicycle rental here, would you do that entire ride? I mean, would that be something you would find entertaining, enjoyable to do? You know, would you rent a bicycle and do that like 20 km bike ride up the river and back again? Yeah. I’m curious how many other people out there would actually enjoy something like that. If you don’t, that’s absolutely fine because there are so many things in Melaka that you can do inside the city limits. But yeah, I do enjoy heading out exploring like that on a bicycle. You kind of see a new side of the city. All right, that’s it. Shutting down. See you next time.